Monday, September 28, 2009

Windows 7 - Microphone control - where is it?

It has been driving me nuts for several days trying to figure out how to control when the microphone is on or off on my Lenovo T60 laptop with Windows 7 RC (I am assuming the RTM is the same.) I have been listening to a lot of online training materials the last few days and the mic has been on the whole time with no obvious way to turn it off. I finally took the time to figure it out.
You have to mouse click on the speaker icon in the task bar, then click on the speaker icon at the top of the volume adjustment graphic that pops up. That will open a new window titled Speaker Properties, you pick the Levels tab and under that is Microphone. You can adjust the level of the microphone but more importantly there is the option to mute it (you click on the speaker - yes I know, it doesn't make any sense.)
Why the microphone mute option is buried here I have no idea, you can get to the same window by right clicking the speaker icon in the taskbar and selecting Open Volume Mixer then doing the same click on the speaker but this is just as un-intuitive as what I outlined before.
Given how many folks are doing multimedia stuff today (video/screencasts/podcasts) you would think the microphone would finally get some respect and its own icon set? Guess not.
- Ed

Updated post for the RTM on this is at:
http://www.howfunky.com/2010/02/update-windows-7-microphone-control.html

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

PacITPros BranchCache presentation posted

The presentation I gave on BranchCache has been posted up on the PacITPros website here and the MS slide deck content is here. There were some questions about Active Directory requirements and I will post some clarifications requirements on that shortly. VMworld is still going on and there are a lot of options happening in the Cloud area that IT Pros should be keeping an eye on as they start to virtualize their environments and are looking for DR/BC options.
- Ed